


Shadows in the Distant Light

by CamsthiSky



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Barbara Gordon - Freeform, Bruce Wayne - Freeform, Cassandra Cain - Freeform, Damian Wayne - Freeform, Gen, Jason Todd - Freeform, tim drake - Freeform, unfinished works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 03:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14151297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamsthiSky/pseuds/CamsthiSky
Summary: Basically just a place to put unfinished stories I've lost interest in over time. Each chapter is a different unfinished work.





	1. I Have the Perfect Attitude for This Altitude, Thank You Very Much

Dick woke up in an airplane, thousands of feet up in the air.

Okay, well, actually _Nightwing_ woke up in an airplane. He wasn’t sure exactly how, since the last thing he remembered was crashing on Tim’s couch for the night. He’d had a mild concussion or something, and his neck had been killing him, so Tim had taken him home during patrol. But one look out one of the only windows on the small plane told him that it was very much nighttime. So, that begged the question, was it still the same night, or had he lost time?

Whatever the answer, it wouldn’t help him help him right now.

He wasn’t tied up or anything, and a quick check showed that he still had his weapons, so probably not a kidnapping. Mask was in place and no one else seemed to be on the plane.

So, if Nightwing was the only one on the plane, then who was piloting it?

He crept towards the controls—the plane was so small there wasn’t even a door separating the cockpit from the hold and there was only one small hatch towards the back—and peeked around the two chairs. Empty. The controls? Autopilot. And from the looks of it, locked on a specific flight path. Without Oracle’s help, Nightwing wasn’t sure if he could take control of the plane and land it safely.

Speaking of Oracle, now might be the best time to call her. He tapped his comm unit.

“Nightwing to Oracle?” he said, frowning when it came out more of a rasp. His lips were really dry, too, and his throat was suddenly on fire. Dehydrated, then. Didn’t make any sense, but Nightwing filed it away with the other information and focused on the task at hand. Time to put all that training in compartmentalizing to good use. Nightwing frowned. “Oracle? Are you there?”

 There was silence for almost a minute before there was a click and finally, _“Nightwing? What is it?”_

“I’m-” Nightwing cut himself off. How the hell did he explain this one? “D’you know how to land a plane?”

_“A plane? Like an airplane?”_

“Yep. It’s got wings and everything.”

 _“Ha ha,”_ Barbara said in his ear. _“Yes, I know how to land an airplane, and I thought you did, too. Why?”_

“Because I’m in one?” Nightwing tried.

 _“You’re_ in _an airplane. Care to explain?”_

“Not too sure about that one myself.”

There was a sigh. _“I’m activating your tracker now. You’re—what the hell?”_

Alarm spiked in his chest. “What? What’s wrong?”

_“Nightwing. You’re in the airplane circling Gotham.”_

“The plane circling Gotham?” Nightwing asked, a frown pulling down his lips as he tried to make that make sense in his head. “What does that mean?”

Oracle made an irritated noise. _“You’re kidding, right? It’s not even a secret anymore. The news is all over—oh. Oh no. You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”_

“Not a clue. Mind filling me in?”

 _“About an hour ago, someone called the Commissioner and threatened to drop a bomb on Gotham if they didn’t meet the demands. He said the plane circling Gotham would drop it over the center of the city if they didn’t meet Batman by midnight.”_ Oracle’s voice was serious, and Nightwing could hear her keys clacking, even as her voice grew stronger. _“He wants Batman to meet him at Gotham Bridge, and if he doesn’t he will, and I quote, ‘bring about Batman’s worst nightmares.’”_

“Why Batman? He’s not like the Joker, is he?”

“ _Nobody’s sure. Red Robin’s out playing mediator, right now.”_

“So we don’t actually know what he wants.”

 _“No,”_ Barbara said, and she sounded kind of tired. _“But with you in that plane, it looks like you’re part of his plan.”_

“Wait, you said Red Robin’s out there. Why didn’t Batman go?”

Oracle was quiet for a moment. _“Nightwing,”_ and her voice was gentle, concerned, _“Batman left for a League mission two days ago, remember?”_

He didn’t, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Moving on, Nightwing looked around the small plane. There was literally nothing on it. Just the cockpit, and a few ropes lying around here and there. Nothing that would suggest anything sinister.

When Barbara spoke again, her voice was no nonsense. _“Anyways, do you see anything that we need to know?”_

“If you’re talking about a bomb, I don’t see one. At least, not on the inside.”

He still felt uneasy, though, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was on the outside of the plane, then, or in the controls? Or maybe the plane was just supposed to be the bomb itself. It would run out of fuel and then drop, crashing into Gotham.

_“Are you sure?”_

“Positive. Can you hack a satellite to see if it’s strapped to the outside?” Nightwing asked.

_“Done. There’s not. From what I can tell, there isn’t even a trace of a bomb anywhere on that plane.”_

Nightwing swallowed and voiced his last thought. “So maybe the guy’s using the plane itself as a bomb. You know, wait ‘til it drops out of the sky itself?”

Oracle made a thoughtful noise. _“Maybe, but I’m not convinced. In any case, we’re going to need to get it on the ground without destroying half the city.”_

“Yeah, about that,” Nightwing said, looking over the controls again. “I don’t think I can land this plane.”

_“I can coach you through—”_

“That’s not the problem,” Nightwing cut in, slumping into the pilot’s seat. He didn’t like what he saw. The mode control panel was sporting some weird buttons and a _keypad_ of all things. “The controls are on autopilot, and from the looks of it, they’re locked. An access code is needed to disengage autopilot, and I don’t even know how long the code needs to be.”

Okay, he was beyond stressed now. He was stuck thousands of feet up in the air, in an airplane, with no idea how he got there, and there didn’t seem to be a way to land this thing. So what now?

If he were Bruce, he’d probably have a contingency plan for this kind of thing. But he wasn’t Bruce, and despite being raised by the guy, Nightwing always seemed to fall short of Bruce’s planning expectations. He didn’t have anything for this one.

_“That’s…not good.”_

Nightwing laughed humorlessly. “Tell me about it.”

_“Let’s start from the beginning. Maybe there’s a clue to all of this. Do you remember how you got on the plane?”_

Sighing, Nightwing slumped back even further into the chair. “No. The last thing I remember is Red Robin forcing me back to his apartment.”

 _“RR said you bailed in the middle of the night,”_ Oracle told him. _“He also said you were acting weird before that.”_

Nightwing frowned. “Weird how?”

_“He said that you were refusing to eat anything. He thought it was the nausea from the concussion, but when he woke you up the first time to check on you, you were already up eating all his cereal. He made you go back to sleep, and when he went to wake you up again, you were gone.”_

“I…don’t remember that,” Nightwing said, blinking.

He tried to think back. Most of the night before—he was guessing—was a blur. He and Red Robin had finished a stake out, beat up some thugs, stopped a drug deal, and were about to call it a night before Nightwing got blind-sided.

He didn’t exactly remember the exact moment, but he remembered being on his knees, realizing he had no idea how he’d gotten there, a goon unconscious a couple feet away, and Tim trying to get his attention. He had remembered his neck had been killing him, and that time he’d thought it was the concussion like Tim had told him it was. But now….

“I think I may have been drugged,” Nightwing said, his stomach flipping. “The guy that hit me must’ve gotten me while I was down. Before Red Robin knocked him out.”

It made the most sense. He didn’t remember anything, he’d been _way_ too out of it for just a concussion, even for him, and he’d been acting out of the ordinary.

 _“Maybe,”_ Oracle conceded. _“I don’t think we’ll know for sure until we’ve gotten you out of that plane.”_

Nightwing sighed. “Okay, so what’s the plan? Call the Batwing, and I’ll jump for it?” Oracle didn’t respond. Nightwing waited a moment, just to make sure that she just wasn’t in the middle of something. He checked the fuel gage. A little less than quarter tank. His nervousness was running wild. “Oracle?”

 _“Not good,”_ she murmured.

“What’s not good?” Nightwing asked. “What happened?”

_“The police. They have a plan.”_

Nightwing sat up fully. “Yeah? And why is that bad?”

_“Because they’re planning on shooting the plane down.”_

“Shoot it _down?!_ But it could crash down onto Gotham—v”

_“Not if they hit it at the right moment.”_

“Okay, wait. I’m kind of lost here. What do you mean ‘hit it at the right moment’? You said it’s circling over Gotham, so if it comes down, then it’s going to come down on the city.”

 _“There’s a pattern in the way the plane is flying,”_ Oracle explained. _“There’s about a minute and a half where the plane, if hit at the right time, will land in the water as it goes down.”_

“Oh,” Nightwing said. “So the police are—”

_“They’re getting ready to do it right now.”_

“Right, so how do I get out of here before they do that?”

_“I’m calling the Batwing to your location, but it’s going to be tight.”_

“How long do I have?”

_“Three minutes and forty-two seconds.”_

“So not long,” Nightwing muttered, pushing himself to his feet. He staggered a bit, barely managing to catch himself on the chair before he face-planted—which, would not have been fun. And would have slowed him down. A lot.

Now that he was on his feet, he was actually really dizzy. Dehydrated. Right. Should probably fix that as soon as possible. Hopefully there was water or an IV on the Batwing. He kept on hand on the wall as he walked towards the back of the plane, where he’d seen the hatch from earlier.

No parachute. Looks like he was free falling. Hopefully he didn’t end up a flattened pancake.

 _“One minute and fifty-seven seconds,”_ Oracle told him.

“Batwing ETA?”

_“Fifty-two seconds.”_

Nightwing’s throat tightened. “Wow, when you said tight, you meant it.”

He could practically _hear_ Oracle roll her eyes. _“Just get ready to jump.”_

“I’m ready,” he said, hand hovering over the latch. Once he pulled it, the cabin would depressurize, and he would literally have to risk not being able to breathe. He didn’t really need any more dizziness, so he was going to wait until the absolute last second. He counted in his head.

_Five, four, three, two, one._

_“It’s there. You have one minute until that plane is shot down. Get out of there. Now.”_

“Will do,” Nightwing said, taking a deep breath. “Thanks.”

_“Just make sure you get your butt back here, Nightwing.”_

Nightwing resisted laughing and pulled the latch. The cabin depressurized, the hatch door was ripped away by its hinges, and Nightwing couldn’t breathe. He was too high up, the air too thin. He pushed past it, and brought himself to the edge of the hatch, barely able to keep himself from blowing away.

The Batwing was ready, the perfect distance away for him to fall towards once he let himself fly out into the rushing wind, a hatch open for him on top. It was sort of a long way to jump, but it matched with the airplane’s speed easily, and it didn’t wobble. As long as Nightwing aimed for it, he wouldn’t miss the opening.

 _Thirty-nine seconds,_ his brain told him.

He had to go.

Nightwing braced himself, eyed the Batwing’s hatch, and then let go.

For a moment, time slowed down. The hatch approached so slowly, Nightwing thought for a second he’d missed, and panic shot through him. But then time was speeding up again, Nightwing sliding perfectly through the open hatch and landing in a less than perfect landing.

He thumped to the ground, something shifted in his chest, and he didn’t move.

_Twenty-six seconds._

_“Are you good?”_ Oracle asked. _“Nightwing?”_

Nightwing wanted to answer, he really did, but he was currently having trouble getting air in his lungs. He couldn’t let that keep him down, though. That plane was still going to explode, and with the Batwing this close, Nightwing would still be going down with it. He needed to move the Batwing.

He rolled to his feet, staggered over to the controls, and pressed the button for the Batcave. The hatch hissed closed, the Batwing shot off, leaving the plane behind, making for the manor, and Nightwing collapsed to the floor again, his breaths coming in gasps.

He had landed on something wrong. That was the only explanation for why his chest felt so wrong. He could hardly get a breath in still, even with the hatch closed. Something wasn’t right, and there wasn’t a single damn thing he could do about it until the Batwing made it to the Batcave.

_“Nightwing? Dammit, answer me!”_

“I’m…here,” Nightwing gasped out. “Just…rough…landing.”

_“How rough?!”_

Nightwing couldn’t respond, though, no matter how much he wanted to reassure Barbara that he was going to be okay. Because, he wasn’t really sure that he _was_ going to be okay. Oracle was still yelling at him to answer in his ear, but Nightwing could only pant and gasp as he struggled to breathe.

This wasn’t good.

He didn’t know how long he laid there, spread out on the ground, but it seemed like forever. Each breath was more difficult than the last, and he hoped that Oracle had the foresight to make sure that someone was in the Cave ready to help him, because he sure as hell wasn’t getting up on his own anytime soon.

Voices. He could hear voices. They were getting closer, and when Nightwing blinked, Jason was leaning over him, talking to him. He couldn’t make his brain process what Jason was saying, but his little brother seemed really angry. Nightwing—no, _Dick,_ now. Jason was peeling off his mask—wondered if Jason was angry at _him_ or just in general. It was Jason’s usual look, after all.

“…dare die on me, you complete and utter _dickface!”_ Jason was yelling, his hands moving rapidly to cut the Nightwing suit off of him. Huh. Looks like his brain was somewhat back online. “Because I swear to _God_ , if you die, I will bring you back to life just to kill you _myself!”_

Dick didn’t doubt it.

He didn’t respond, though. He couldn’t get enough air to. He just let himself fall into a numb buzz, the pain coursing through him fading into nothing. Jason had drugged him, taking away the pain.

Dick sat there in that haze as Jason worked over him. He didn’t know what was wrong, or why Jason seemed to be yelling at every so often, and he wasn’t sure what exactly Jason was doing—

He gasped, taking his first full deep breath since he’d landed in the Batwing, and then he was crying. The mix of drugs, the concussion, and the situation was messing him up. Here he was, blubbering like an idiot as his little brother worked to save his life.

And well, whatever Jason was doing was working, because _he could breathe._

Dick blinked, his eyes heavy, and when he opened his eyes again, Tim was there, brushing his hair away from his sweaty face. He was still in full costume sans cowl, which made Dick think that Tim had abandoned _mediating_. Tim caught his gaze and sent him a small smile.

“Dick?” he asked. “Are you back with us?”

“Did I leave?” Dick rasped, bewildered.

“Just for a little while,” Tim told him.

And that’s when Dick noticed that he wasn’t on the floor of the Batwing anymore. He was in the Cave’s med bay, lying on a medical cot, covered in soft cotton sheets up to his waist. His torso was bare, but swathed in bandages. He looked like a mummy. A mask was covering half his face, making a hissing noise as it helped bring oxygen into his lungs.

Oh, and Jason was gone.

“Where’s Jason?” Dick croaked. “I thought he was here.”

Tim went blank. “Jason left.”

“Oh,” Dick said, leaning back into the pillows behind him.

“Yeah,” Tim said, but there was something behind his eyes that made Dick feel more confused than before.

“What happened to the plane?” Dick asked instead, deciding to drop Jason for now. “Did they shoot it down?”

Tim wasn’t looking at him. “It went down in the water, and nobody but my idiot of a big brother was hurt.”

“How bad is it?”  Dick croaked, eyebrows furrowing, because Tim sounded _really_ angry.

“You landed pretty hard,” Tim told him. “I’m guessing you landed on your chest, because Alfred says you have minor pulmonary contusions. Then he took some X-rays to prove it.”

Dick blinked. That didn’t sound good, but at least he hadn’t broken anything. It seemed like he lucked out for once. “Were you here?” Dick asked.

But Tim shook his head. “No, I was dealing with that psychopath on the bridge.”

“Did you figure out what he wanted?”

“He wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Because you’re not Batman,” Dick guessed, suddenly feeling exhausted. He slumped back into the hospital bed. “Did you at least catch the guy?”

“He got away.”

Tim’s voice was quiet, but Dick could still here the irritation behind it, and almost automatically, he reached a hand out for Tim. When Tim just looked at him, exasperated, Dick made a grabbing-motion with his fingers. Tim shot him a flat look, but Dick was too tired to care. He just wanted to hold his little brother’s hand.

“No,” Tim said, his arms crossing over his chest, out of Dick’s reach.

Dick frowned and wiggled his fingers some more. “Yes.”

“No.”

“Come on, Timmy. Please.”

“Damian says that indulging you could lead to a Pavlovian response.”

“Since when do you listen to Damian?”

Tim frowned, and Dick sent him the biggest grin he could muster. After a short stare down, Tim finally rolled his eyes and took Dick’s hand, and Dick squeezed it thankfully.

He felt—odd. He was missing so much time, and having Tim here was a blessing Dick didn’t know that he’d needed. It’d be better if Bruce, Jason, Damian, Cass, Barbara, Steph, Duke, and Alfred—his family—were all here, but Dick would take what he could get. Especially while he was locked up on house arrest.

(There was no way that Alfred was going to let him go _anywhere_ with an injury like this.)

Dick’s eyes were starting to droop, and Tim didn’t look the least bit surprised when Dick yawned. “Where is everyone else?”

Tim shrugged, back to not looking Dick in the eyes. “Around.”

“Define ‘around.’”

“Alfred’s with Damian at the penthouse,” Tim explained, gripping Dick’s hand just a bit tighter. “Jason left a little while, but I didn’t ask where he was going. Steph and Cass are with Barbara looking for our psycho bridge guy. Bruce still hasn’t come back from the JL mission.”

“Duke?” Dick asked, starting to feel a little fuzzy.

“Upstairs.”

“And you?”

Tim shot him an odd look. “I’m right here, Dick. You’re holding my hand.”

Dick frowned. “You’re upset.”

“I—” Tim shrugged, looking back down at the bed. His grip grew even tighter. “I guess. It’s just—Dick, you were at my apartment. I should have stopped you from leaving or s _omething_.”

“You didn’t know,” Dick told him softly. “Nobody did.”

“Yeah, but I _should have,”_ Tim stressed. “You were—are—concussed and all I did was let you eat my cereal and then lose you. You _disappeared,_ Dick. Vanished. And it was my fault.”

“No,” Dick said, his voice hitting somewhere between big brother and Batman—which was a _feat_ considering how different those two were. “You can’t blame yourself, Tim. We’ll figure out what happened, but trust me. I know it’s not your fault.”

Tim snorted. “Oh yeah? How?”

Dick winked. “Call it big brother logic.”

“Right,” Tim said, a small smile on his face. He looked just a little less world weary from before, and Dick was glad.

But he was also dead tired, and that pain in his chest was back, though not as severe. His breathing was starting to get shallower, and Tim’s smile turned into a frown. He seemed to know what to do, though. Dick watched dully as Tim fixed an oxygen mask onto Dick’s face and turned on a ventilator.

Dick hummed his thanks, his breathing easing up just a bit.

“Go to sleep, Dick,” Tim said, slipping his hand back into Dick’s. “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”


	2. Paper Lanterns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written anything for this AU in eight months :| but this is basically an AU where Dick wakes up in a world where he was never Robin and Bruce retired as Batman. Everyone's alive, they live together in the manor, and Dick is very confused about everything.

He wasn’t sure, at first, what had woken him. The stupid alarm clock on the bedside table was telling him it was stupid o’clock in the stupid morning, and he was more than ready to just roll over and drift back to sleep. He was just about to do that, too, when he heard a distinct couple of _thumps_ coming from the hall.

Dick froze, not sure exactly what that would be. Nobody should have been able to make it past Bruce Wayne’s security system, so that ruled out a robbery. Everyone was back from patrol, too, so no one should be awake.

Except for, well, Tim. Dick wouldn’t be surprised if it was Tim on his way to crash in his bedroom after a week without sleeping. That kid needed a semi-normal sleep schedule or something. Dick had had to _force_ him to sleep more than once (which really just ended up with Dick sitting on top of Tim until he gave up and fell asleep).

He started to drift off again, and he was almost there, too, just shy of finding that rare dreamless sleep when another couple of _thumps_ sounded, and Dick realized that it was a knock. Someone was knocking. Not on Dick’s door, but it was loud enough to wake up the whole stupid house full of trained vigilantes.

Dick groaned, pushing himself into a sitting position. He stumbled out of bed and opened his door a bit, peeking out into the hallway. He blinked at the scene before him.

“Uh,” he said. Real eloquent, but it was enough to get Tim, who was sitting on the floor in front of Jason’s bedroom, just across the hallway, a laptop in his lap, his head occasionally banging against the door, to look at him. Dick wasn’t quite sure what to say. He decided to go with, “What are you doing?”

Tim shrugged, banging his head against the door again, his head knocking against the door again. “Jason borrowed my flash drive a few days ago for a project and now he won’t give it back.”

That raised so many more questions than it answered, and honestly Dick wasn’t quite sure where to start. Maybe with the obvious.

“You realize it’s like four in the morning, right?”

“Yes,” Tim said, “But I need him to give it back. It has my presentation on it.”

Dick huffed a breath. More questions. “So Jason’s back then?”

Tim shot him a weird look. “He got back yesterday. I thought you knew that.”

Yesterday? Dick hadn’t been at the manor yesterday. Instead he’d been running around doing a couple errands for Babs, followed by taking Damian out for a few hours to cool his own (and Damian’s to an extent) temper before they returned for patrol. He couldn’t believe he’d missed Jason coming back to the manor of his own volition. He’d have to ask Alfred about it when the butler got up for the morning.

“Is Jason even up?” Dick asked, squinting through the gloom of the hallway. Tim had been thumping on Jay’s door for a while now, and there hadn’t been a single response.

Tim shrugged again, viciously clicking something with his mousepad. “He’s up. I saw him like fifteen minutes ago in the kitchen.”

“Okay, but why are _you_ up?” Dick asked, rubbing at one tired eye. “And when’s the last time you slept?”

“Last night,” Tim said shortly, thumping against the door again, this one harder than the others. “And I’m up because if I don’t get it now, then I’m not going to get it at all. You know what Jason’s like.”

Dick frowned. “Not really. Not anymore,” Dick said slowly. “But I didn’t realize that _you_ knew what Jason was like.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Dick forced himself not to flinch at the venom thrown his way. It didn’t bother Dick, not really. He was used to it with Damian, and Jason wasn’t exactly nice to him on a good day, but Tim. Little Timmy usually didn’t get short with _Dick_ like that. Damian, yes. Dick? He hadn’t fought with Tim since he’d made Damian Robin.

Maybe Tim was just having a rough day. Not enough coffee, or something. It’d probably be best if Dick dropped it.

So he did.

“Nothing,” Dick sighed. “Forget I said anything. Do you want me to talk to Jay?”

Tim stared at him, body still and eyes practically boring into his own in the dim light of the laptop. Finally, he relaxed. “Yeah, sure. He actually _listens_ to you.”

Dick couldn’t remember a single incident since before Jason had died that Jay had actually _listened_ to Dick instead of trying to shoot his face off. Those were very distinct differences, ones that Tim should know firsthand, and Dick had an inkling that he was missing something.

Instead of voicing his thoughts, though, Dick crossed the hall, waiting for Tim to scramble to his feet, before he jiggled on Jay’s door handle. Locked. Explained why Tim hadn’t already gone in. And if Jason was at the manor now, it probably wouldn’t do any good to drive the guy away by invading his privacy, so picking the lock was out of the question, too.

“Jason?” Dick called softly as he knocked. “I know you’re in there. Can I talk to you?”

There was a moment of silence before Dick picked up some grumbling from the other side of the door. Jason pulled the door open after another minute, looking pissed off.

“It’s four in the fucking morning,” Jason hissed. “Go the fuck away.”

“Give me my flash drive and I will,” Tim said. “I need it, Jason. I still need to finish that presentation.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “It’s in your room, Einstein.”

“What.”

“On your desk? I put it right next to that sticky notepad you have. Which,” Jason looked almost concerned, “wow, Tim. I didn’t think that a single human being needed _that_ many sticky notes. Congratulations on proving me wrong.”

Tim was turning an interesting shade of red. “I will strangle you in your sleep if you say one more word.”

“You could try.” Jason looked way too amused. “And also, maybe not leave your presentations until last minute, Tim. Cass said you guys had like three weeks.”

Tim muttered something under his breath and stormed away, Dick and Jason watching him, Jason in some sort of glee and Dick in confusion. He was tired, and he didn’t really understand why Jason or Cass would know anything about Tim’s presentations for Wayne Enterprises. Maybe he just needed to get some sleep.

“Hey.”

Dick glanced over at Jason. “What?”

Jason stared at him, giving him the same look Tim had before. “Are you okay?”

“Tired,” Dick answered shortly, his hand coming back up to rub at his face again. He’d gone to bed less than two hours ago. It was weird that Jason was asking him that. “Why?”

“No reason,” Jason said, his answer just a bit too quick. “If you’re tired why aren’t you in bed?”

Dick yawned. “Tim was knocking his skull against your door. I’m surprised you didn’t come out and stop him before it drove you insane.”

Jason’s eyebrows crinkled. “Wait, that woke you up? It wasn’t _that_ loud.”

Dick shrugged. “I’m a light sleeper.”

Jason stared at him again. “Riiiiiight,” he said. “Just, go to bed Dickface.”

Dick hummed. “Night, Jay.”

“Night.”

* * *

 

Dick sighed and rolled out of bed, pulling on sweats and a T-shirt. He was still tired after only five(ish) hours of sleep, but he’d run on less before, and he could always take a nap later if he really couldn’t handle it.

He made his way to the kitchen—the source of the yelling—following the smell of Alfred’s amazing cooking. When he walked in, he was surprised to find not only Tim and Damian bickering at the island bar, but Jason, too, sitting on the counter a couple feet from the stove Alfred was grilling bacon on, nursing a cup of coffee.

Tim (did he look shorter than Dick remembered?) and Damian didn’t notice him when he walked in, but Jason looked up, his eyebrows crinkling like they did last night. “You know you didn’t have to get up, right?” he asked, causing Tim and Damian to finally stop yelling at each other and look over at him.

Dick shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said.

Tim made a strange noise in the back of his throat. “Is that why you were up last night?”

“No,” Dick said, sidling up to Alfred’s other side to watch the bacon—tofu for Damian—being made. “You woke me up when you tried to give yourself a concussion on Jason’s door.”

“Wait a minute,” Damian interrupted, and irritated look on his face. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll tell you about it later, Little D,” Dick waved him off, glancing back at the bacon. It smelled _really_ good, and Dick remembered that he’d come back too early from patrol last night. Alfred’s post-patrol snack hadn’t been made quite yet, so Dick had gone straight to bed.

“Patience, Master Dick,” Alfred chided him fondly, and Dick couldn’t help the grin spreading across his face.

“Sorry, Alfie.”

“Wait your turn, Dick,” Jason told him. “I was here first, so I get first dibs.”

“Then me,” Tim said, sounding alarmed that they were calling dibs all of the sudden.

Dick laughed. “It’s fine. I can wait until you guys eat,” he said, turning to the fridge, pulling out a glass, and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. He took a drink and slid into the empty barstool next to Tim.

Things still seemed a little odd to him. Things weren’t quite fitting together—why was Jason here? Why did Tim seem smaller than he remembered? Why was Jason even up right now? Why did Tim and Jason keep looking at him weird—and it made Dick feel like he was missing something.

“Richard,” Damian said out of the blue, and Dick startled, barely swallowing his orange juice before he could start to choke on it. “Are you going to tell me about last night, now?”

Dick’s gaze swiveled to Damian, who was looking at him expectantly. Did he just…? What? What had just happened? What happened to the petulant _Grayson_ Damian ground out every time Dick ruffled his hair or treated him like an actual ten-year-old?

He was staring too long. It was obvious in the way that Damian was shifting uncomfortably under his gaze, but Dick couldn’t stop himself. He’d been trying to get Damian to use his first name for _months_ —of course, it wasn’t what he preferred, but he didn’t mind.

Damian finally scowled. At him. Whoops. Too much staring for too long. He’d made this weird.

“You okay there, Bigbird?” Jason asked, and Dick blinked away from Damian to look over at Jason. Tim was staring at him, too, and even Alfred was glancing at him worriedly from the corner of his eye. “Dick?” Jason asked again when he didn’t answer. “Do you want me to—”

“I’m fine,” Dick sighed before Jason could finish. He ran a hand through his hair. _Lie._ He needed to lie. Something was off, and he didn’t know what. For now, he needed to go with the flow. Damian calling him Richard out of the blue had been completely normal for everyone but Dick. He needed to lie until he figured this out. “I think I’m still half-asleep,” he tried to joke. “I was lost in thought and Damian just startled me.”

Jason didn’t look convinced, and neither did Tim, but Damian looked somewhat relieved, so Dick was going to count that as a win.

“So, last night?” Damian prompted.

“Oh, uh yeah,” Dick said. “Jason borrowed Tim’s flash drive, who tried to get it back at like four in the morning. I mediated. The end.”

Normally Dick wouldn’t be so short with Damian, but this whole thing was raking his nerves. Damian looked unsatisfied and turned to Tim for answers, like he knew that Dick wasn’t going to give them to him. Damian opened his mouth—

“Breakfast is ready, young sirs,” Alfred interrupted, sliding plates full of french toast, eggs, and bacon to Damian, Tim, and Jason. He turned to Dick. “If you don’t mind waiting for a moment, Master Dick, I’ll have yours finished shortly.”

Dick smiled. “Thanks, Alfred, but I think I’m going to go back to bed for a little while. I’ll eat later.”

“Of course,” Alfred sighed. “Is it the headache again?”

Dick swallowed, not remembering any headache except for the concussion he’d had a month and a half ago after a nasty run in with Bane. Certainly not an incident Alfred should be remembering as something constant. But he let his smile become strained at the edges and said, “Yeah, it’s the headache.”

He was such a liar.

* * *

Dick knew two things as of right then.

One, something was off with his family. They acted somewhat differently than he remembered. And Jason was _here._ In the manor. They also seemed to act a lot more cohesive than he remembered. It was…strange.

Two, whatever was going on, Dick should try his best to keep everyone thinking that everything was normal until he figured out what the hell had happened. He knew by experience that the calmer everyone was, the better chance he had of understanding what was going on.

So there Dick was, on the roof, turning everything over in his head, definitely _not_ sleeping like he had said. He didn’t get it. If this were happening to Tim, he’d probably be all over it by now, but there was just a feeling. Nothing definitive. Just the way his family acted and looked at him, and Dick couldn’t figure out what he was missing.

“Dick?”

 _“Holy—”_ Dick startled, grabbing the edge of the roof where his feet were dangling so that he wouldn’t fall off. He peeked down in between his legs at the window below him. “Bruce?”

Bruce blinked up at him. “Can I come up?”

“Uh, sure.” Dick scooted over so that the other man could climb up.

Bruce grabbed the ledge and pulled himself up to sit next to Dick with practiced ease. Dick was pretty used to it, considering. As a child, he’d get upset, hadn’t been able to control that short temper of his, and he’d need to go somewhere to cool off. Short of a trapeze, the roof was the only place Dick had felt like he could breathe. It was up high, away from the world, away from his problems. Bruce always found him there, though, and it became their thing. At least, it had until Dick had turned sixteen and their arguments got more vicious. Bruce left him alone after that.

So, he hadn’t sat with Bruce like this for a long time. So much longer than he remembered. Since before Jason died.

“Are you alright?” Bruce asked.

Dick shrugged. “Ask me again in five minutes.”

Bruce hummed lightly, contemplative. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Dick was silent for a moment. He could talk about it, but what if Bruce didn’t feel the same way? Didn’t believe him? Didn’t think anything was off? What then? Was he just supposed to roll over and accept this.

“Something’s off,” Dick finally sighed, because if he couldn’t trust Bruce, who could he trust. “I don’t know what, but something’s weird.”

“Like what?”

Dick looked over at Bruce, catching his gaze. “Why is Jason back in the manor?”

Bruce stared at him blankly for almost a full minute, and Dick was almost afraid that Bruce hadn’t understood the question. Finally, Bruce spoke. “First, tell me why you think he _wouldn’t_ come back.”

Dick was taken aback. “Why he wouldn’t…Bruce, you can’t be serious.” Bruce just kept staring at him expectantly, and Dick pressed his face into his hands. “Okay. Okay, so, I thought that Jason wasn’t going to come back because he _said_ he wasn’t going to come back. Told us, straight to our faces.”

“Jason’s got a temper,” Bruce said almost gently. “He was overreacting. He always does that.”

“Bruce,” Dick said, as slowly as he could, because he knew that Bruce had problems when it came to Jason, but he just didn’t realize how serious those problems were. “Bruce. Jason went insane when he came out of the pit. He’s tried to kill all of us at least once. He almost _did_ kill Damian and Tim, and I’m pretty sure the only person he actually likes in this house is Alfred. And why not? I wasn’t awful to him, but I never really _tried_ to be his brother before he died. And…Bruce?”

Bruce’s jaw was set, and he wasn’t looking at Dick anymore. He seemed to be contemplating Dick’s words, mulling them over like they were news, or something, and again, that feeling of nothing making sense grew. What the hell was he missing?

“Bruce?” Dick asked again. “What’s wrong?”


	3. We're Heading Straight For A Meltdown

The only reason Dick thought that _maybe_ he wasn’t dead was because it hurt so much. He didn’t think being dead would hurt _at all_ , really, so he _probably_ wasn’t dead. Maybe he should ask Jason, though. If he got the chance.

The second clue to not being dead was the fingers carding through his hair. It felt really nice, and you probably couldn’t feel nice things when you were dead, either. So again, it was looking more and more like he was still alive.

And yet, he couldn’t remember why his body was a big ball of hurt.

“How’s he doing?” a voice murmured from a little ways away. The voice wasn’t too deep, and it was familiar enough that Dick thought he should have recognized it the moment he heard it, but he couldn’t place it.

“Still unconscious,” another voice said, this one closer, like it was right next to Dick, so this was probably the one with fingers tangled in Dick’s hair. There was some humor in his voice when he spoke again. “The bastard couldn’t even die properly.”

“That’s supposed to be a _good_ thing, you know,” the first voice huffed, coming closer until it was on his other side. “We really almost lost him.”

“Hey, I know that better than anyone. It was stupid not to think that he needed help.”

The first voice sighed. “Jay. Just give yourself a break. It wasn’t your fault.”

Jay? Why was that name so familiar? He tried to think, searching his very uncooperative mind for anything that made sense. Jay, Jay. Ja…son? Jason Todd. Right. His brother. The one who’d died and come back to life. The one that Dick still needed to ask if death actually hurt or not. Right.

The second voice—Jason—snorted. “I’m not an idiot, Timmy. I know that I couldn’t have stopped Goldie even if I really wanted to. He’s too much like Bruce sometimes.” There was a pause, before Jason continued, “Sometimes he’s so much like Bruce it scares the crap out of me.”

“But he’s not,” the first voice—Tim, Jason had said—spoke up quickly. “Bruce, I mean. He’s not all doom and gloom like B is. Dick actually smiles, and jokes, and he doesn’t drive everyone he knows away from him.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jason said. “Bigbird’s jokes are enough to drive anyone away.”

“But when’s the last time Bruce cracked a joke?” Tim pushed. Dick could imagine the guy leaning forward in his insistence. “Dick’s not Bruce, no matter how stubborn both of them are.”

There was a tense silence, and Dick, could he have moved, would have opened his eyes and grabbed Tim’s or Jason’s hand, or maybe both of their hands, because he didn’t really get what was going on. And to tell the truth, he didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t seem to hold onto what his brothers were saying. It was like trying to remember a dream, everything slipping through the cracks the tighter he held on.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jason finally conceded. Another pause, before, “Do you think he’s going to wake up soon?”

“I hope so. He’s been out for almost two hours.” Something settled on Dick’s chest.

Dick’s eyes slammed open so fast the bright lights above his head blinded him. Beeping from somewhere on his left, which had once been background noise, started to pick up with his heart rate, and he was suddenly finding it incredibly hard to draw breath.

The fingers slid from his hair to his face, gripping his chin. There was yelling, and voices, but his heart was pounding in his ears, and he couldn’t seem to focus. Nothing was making any sense, and he still couldn’t see anything but bright lights and silhouettes.

The pressure on his chest increased as something pushed down on it, and it went from hard to breathe to _impossible_. He couldn’t get the air into his lungs, and _oh god,_ he was going to suffocate, wasn’t he?

“Dick!” someone was shouting, but it sounded so distant. The fingers fell from his face, and Dick mourned the touch. “Crap, he can’t breathe. Help me sit him up!”

And then the pressure disappeared, and Dick was sucking in precious air through an oxygen mask. He was sitting up now, limp, his back pressed against someone else’s chest, and he was _exhausted._ He wanted to go back to before, when it had felt like a dream, not this land of hurt, hurt, hurt.

His eyes had closed again at some point, and he didn’t really feel like opening them again, but there were murmurs surrounding him, and vibration every few moments from whoever he was leaning on, and Dick hadn’t stayed alive this long because he was stupid.

Where was he? What happened? Who was in the room with him? Should he be playing dead? He couldn’t remember and he wouldn’t know unless he opened his eyes and looked, even if it would alert whoever was holding him that he was conscious.

He cracked his eyes open, and found himself squinting up at Timothy Drake, his little brother, and then Dick was crying, and he didn’t know why. This was all really, _really_ confusing. If Tim was here, then Dick was probably safe, but then where was everyone else?

Tim blinked at him a moment, before his eyebrows furrowed. “Dick? Are you with me?”

“Is he still awake?” the vibration rumbled from behind him. “Dick? Are you awake?”

“He’s crying,” Tim murmured, a frown tilting his lips down, and Dick just wanted Tim in his arms right now. Anything to make that frown go away. “I don’t think he’s actually coherent. Dick? Dick, if you can hear me, can you move your fingers?”

Oh. Tim was talking to him. And apparently there was something _really_ wrong with him, because Dick can’t remember Tim looking that concerned in a long time—well, he can’t really remember much of anything, so that’s probably not the most reliable method of understanding things. But still. Tim shouldn’t have that look on his face.

“Dick, I need to know if you can understand me. Can you move one of your fingers for me?”

“What’s going on, Babybird?” The vibrations sounded concerned.

Tim shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s looking at me, but it’s like he’s not hearing me. I don’t know if it’s because he _can’t_ hear me, or if his brains are more scrambled than we thought.”

“You think that Bigbird’s gone deaf?”

Tim rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Not really, no. I think the concussion is just more serious than we thought. If he were deaf, he’d probably be responding to my lips moving or something. And we all know how to read lips, so he’d at least be responding to me.”

“So, what? You think his concussion’s left him brain dead or something?” The sudden fear in the vibrations worried Dick. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed wrong. The vibrations did anger, not terror. Where was the anger? Why were the vibrations so scared? Did _he_ have to do with it? Was it his fault?

The tears fell harder, but they were still silent.

Tim was right in front of his face now, kneeling on the ground and ignoring whatever the vibrations had said. “Hey, Dick. Come on, it’s going to be alright. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“You already tried that, Timmy. What makes you think he’s gonna answer after the first three times he’s ignored you?”

“He’s not ignoring me, Jason.”

Tim’s eyes hardened, and Dick tried to understand why. Tim was…talking to someone. But what was—what was he saying? Again, he could hear the words, but he couldn’t quite comprehend the meaning of them.

His head was killing him. Where were the pain killers? Where was his family? Why was Tim the only one here with him? What about Bruce, and Damian, and Jason, and Cass, and Alfred? Were they dead? Was that why Dick was crying? Because his family was dead, and he and Tim were the only ones alive?

That was an awful thought, and he hated himself for thinking it, but he couldn’t throw the stupid thought away. What if it were true? He needed to know. Tim would know.

His hand twitched, and with strength Dick didn’t even know he had, he forced his hand to make the long journey of almost half a foot to grip Tim’s arm. It was weak, barely resting there, but it stopped Tim’s talking, as well as the vibrations, effectively turning Tim’s attention to Dick.

Great. Now if only he could force himself to speak, too.

He croaked something from behind the oxygen mask, but he had the feeling, at least from the confusion on Tim’s face, that it was unintelligible.

“Dick?” Tim asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I think he’s trying to tell us something, Timbo.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I’m not an idiot, Jason.”

Dick latched onto that. Jason. Tim had said Jason’s name. So, did that mean that Tim was talking to Jason? Was Jason in the room?

“Your life choices would suggest otherwise.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You have literally had five cups of coffee today, Timmy. Five. And two of them had energy drinks mixed in. There probably would have been a third if Alfred hadn’t stopped you.”

“Can we not talk about this right now?” Tim looked kind of mad. “We need to focus on Dick.” Tim switched his attention back to a very confused Dick. He’d been trying to latch on and make sense of what Tim and the vibrations—Jason, his brain finally supplied—were saying. “Hey, bro. What is it?”

So he didn’t get the words Tim was using, at least, not all the way, but he understood the concern. Tim was trying to figure out if something was wrong.

 _“Brsssss.”_ Dick croaked, wincing at his own voice. He tried to clear his throat a bit before he tried again. _“Jay.”_

“Hey, I’m right here,” the vibrations—Jason—said, sounding offended. There was a weird tightening around his waist, and Dick felt ten kinds of stupid. Jason was the one holding him. It had been Jason the entire time. He was the one Dick was practically laying on.

“And Bruce is out on patrol,” Tim added. When Dick just looked at Tim in confusion, because really, the only word he’d caught was _Bruce_ , and that didn’t really tell him anything, Tim seemed to get that Dick wasn’t following. “Bruce,” Tim said again, slower this time, “is on patrol. He’s with Damian.”

 _Oh._ Realization hit Dick like a truck, and that ten kinds of stupid turned into twenty. Because it was only _him_ that had been hurt. He was the only one that had been almost dead, it looked like. Tim didn’t really look devastated, and he and Jason were arguing back and forth from what Dick could tell.

“Why’re you talking to him like that?” Jason asked. “I thought you said he wasn’t deaf.”

“No, and he can definitely hear us, but I think his brain is still pretty messed up. He’s not really following sentences, but I’m guessing individual words aren’t as hard to process.”

“So, it’s like before. With Cass.”

Tim winced. “No. I think this is going to be a lot different. He’s not having trouble with the English language.”

“Just the speed it’s coming at him.”

“Something like that,” Tim murmured. “It’d be better if Dr. Thompkins were here. She’d be able to diagnose him so much better than I can.”

“You’re doing fine, Timmy,” Jason said.

Tim chuckled humorlessly, and Dick frowned, and squeezed Tim’s arm as hard as he could—which wasn’t that hard, actually. Still, Tim noticed, and smiled wryly at him.

“Dick?” Tim asked.

Dick took that as an invitation to try and speak again. _“Timmmm.”_ He took a few breaths, frustrated at how hard this was. _“Hurssss.”_

Tim nodded at him, and Dick was relieved that he at least got the message. His response was a small, sad smile, though, and Dick didn’t really understand. “Hang in there, Dick. It’s another half hour to your next dose.”

Jason snorted. “He’s not going understand what you’re trying to say if you say it like that.”

Tim’s smile fell into a grimace. “Right.” He turned back to Dick. “Hurts?” It took a few seconds, but Dick, realizing that Tim was talking to him again, nodded. “It’ll go away soon,” Tim told him, patting him reassuringly on the hand that was still attached to Tim’s arm.

Dick let his eyes slip closed. Tim said the pain would go away soon, and Dick hoped that soon meant right now. Peaceful oblivion sounded so nice.

When Jason spoke again, it was much quieter and gentler. “Is he asleep?”

“No, but he’s probably worn out. How’re you holding up? Is he too heavy?”

“Nah, he’s okay. My legs are kind of numb, but whatever.”

“Let me know if it gets to be too much,” Tim murmured.

“I’m not moving until his next dose, Timbo,” Jason said. He sounded amused again. Dick wished they would shut up. He just wanted to go to sleep. “If we try to move him without any drugs in his system, it’s not gonna be pretty.”

Tim sighed, but didn’t say anything more. With his eyes closed, Dick didn’t know what Tim was doing, but the up and down motion of Jason’s chest behind him was soothing, and he let himself relax into it, and eventually, Jason’s breathing was what he fell asleep to.

* * *

The next time he woke up wasn’t much different to the first time—he could barely move, he hurt, and someone was brushing their fingers through his hair. Also, he was lying on his back.

The difference this time, though, was the low buzz of voices from the other room. It sounded like they were trying their hardest to be quiet, but they were kind of failing at it. When Dick cracked open his eyes, he couldn’t see Bruce, Damian, Tim, and Jason arguing, but he could sure hear them. Quietly, but still arguing. Dick had a feeling it was about him.

He wondered what he did this time.

Moving on, he looked up at who had their fingers in his hair this time (was that right? Had it happened before? He felt like it had, but he couldn’t quite remember who it was the last time). He blinked.

“Cass?” He tried to croak out. And yes, it was Cass sitting next to him as he lied on a medical bed, hooked up to a bunch of machines.

In typical Cass fashion, Cass smiled softly at him. “How are you?”

Dick blinked at her again, taking a moment to let his mind process her words, not really understanding why he couldn’t seem to understand them until he turned the words over in his mind for a little while. Cass didn’t seem to mind his hesitation, though, and Dick felt sort of relieved.

“I..dunno,” Dick slurred. “’S hard…to talk.”

Cass nodded to him. “That’s fine. If you can’t, don’t.”

Dick scowled once he processed what she’d said. “I…can. ‘S just…hard.”

“Alright,” said Cass easily, and Dick was glad she didn’t argue with him. “Do you want me to get the others?”

She waited patiently while he fiddled with those words. The others? Like, the family? He remembered bits and pieces of before, with Tim and Jason, but he couldn’t really remember what had happened between them. Tim had looked sad, he thought. And Dick had wanted to hug him, but Jason had already been hugging Dick from behind from some reason.

It had been harder to talk before, Dick realized. He remembered the frustration at just getting out a single word, and now, while he was still having trouble, it wasn’t as bad as before. Thank God for small mercies, he supposed.

“Dick?” Dick startled, looking up with wide eyes at Cass, wondering what she wanted. “The others?” she prompted.

And…oh. Right. She’d been asking him a question. He swallowed before nodding stiffly.

Cass squeezed his arm briefly, and then she was gone, the touch of her fingers in his hair disappearing as well. It was just him in a lonely med bay, the buzz of voices in the background. He waited, listening as the buzz tapered off with the appearance of Cassandra Cain.

One by one, they filed in, and while Dick couldn’t move all that well, he did roll his head to watch them. First it was Tim, then Jason, then Damian was shoving past the older two, then Cass, and finally Bruce. Dick wondered briefly where Alfred was.

“Dick?” Tim asked, coming up to his bedside to lean over him. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but wasn’t sure what he really wanted to say. Again, Dick wondered why Tim had looked so sad before. Did this have something to do with it? Was Dick the reason Tim was so hesitant?

Luckily, Jason came to Tim’s rescue, coming to stand beside Tim. “Hey, Dickiebird. You gave us a real scare there.”

“Yes, Grayson,” Damian spoke up, taking the spot Cass had abandoned on the other side of the bed. Dick rolled his head to look at the boy. “Do not do it again.”

Jason snorted. “This is Golden Boy. You can’t seriously expect him not to try to save everyone again, can you?

“Well, it wasn’t like this was exactly his fault, either,” Tim spoke up.

Dick rolled his head back to Jason and Tim, and he would have been really proud of Tim for finally saying something, but there seemed to be a problem. Like before, it was taking a lot of his cognitive power to process and understand what his brothers were saying, but they were talking too fast, not giving him enough to pin down what each was saying before the next spoke up.

Then Bruce came up beside Damian. “Dick?” Dick blinked and turned his head to meet Bruce’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”

All three of Dick’s brothers seemed to shut up and collectively hold their breaths as Dick went over Bruce’s words. What was wrong? A lot of things. The most problematic?

“’S hard,” Dick finally slurred out.

Bruce frowned. “What is?”

Another pause. “T’talk. T’listen.” _To understand,_ he didn’t say, but only because he couldn’t figure out how to make his mouth form that word.

“Are we talking too fast?” Tim asked, and he looked kind of nervous for some reason.

A beat, and then Dick shook his head. “One at…a…time.”

Jason and Tim shared a confused look, and Dick wanted to growl in frustration. He didn’t, but this lack of understanding was starting to get on his nerves. It was hard to find the right words he needed, and Dick was barely keeping the conversation from slipping from his grasp entirely. He really didn’t need everyone else to have any confusion from what _he_ was saying. That only made this about ten times harder.

“There are too many of us speaking at the same time?”

Again, Bruce swept in to save the day. If he were wearing the cowl, it would make sense, but Bruce was in sweats and a T-shirt, probably just back from patrol, so he wasn’t Batman. That was a new feeling. Bruce saving people instead of Batman. He kind of almost liked it.

Damian growled. _“Grayson—”_

Dick startled out of his thoughts, and turned wide eyes towards Damian, his chest stuttering unevenly as he tried to catch his breath. Whatever Damian had been about to say died on his lips, his own eyes wide as he stared back at Dick.

“Wha—?” Dick tried, but he didn’t get very far before he had to breathe again.

Tim hushed him anyways. Beside him, Jason just looked angry—which, you know, wasn’t exactly a _new_ look for Jason, but it seemed kind of out of the ordinary for the situation. Well, it would be if Dick could remember the situation. They’d been talking, and Dick tried to backtrack, but he kept getting lost in the middle of the conversation.

“Dick, do you remember what we were talking about?” Bruce asked, pulling Damian away from Dick’s bedside and making a hand gesture at Jason that Dick thought he _should_ recognize but didn’t. Jason, Damian, and Cass left the room without much fight.

Dick shook his head. “I can’t…Tim was…asking…for Doc?” No, that wasn’t it. Too far back. “No… talking. Talking…fast. ‘S hard—”

Bruce nodded, smoothing his hair back. “I know, Dick. I know it’s tough, but hang in there, okay?”

Dick nodded once he understood the gist of what Bruce was telling him, but his eyes burned in humiliation and frustration. He leaned into Bruce’s touch and squeezed his eyes shut, if only to stop the tears before they could actually start.

Why was this happening to him?

* * *

Tim stared at his brother’s unconscious face for a long time. A lot longer time than was probably healthy, if he was being honest.

He had been so stupid. So, so stupid to think that he could handle his brother’s injuries by himself. Well, he’d had Jason, but it had been Tim that had thought he could actually handle diagnosing and treating Dick for a concussion without Dr. Thompkins’ help.

They’d tried to reach her the moment Jason got Dick stabilized enough to bring back to the Cave, but Dr. Thompkins hadn’t answered. And Alfred picked a hell of a time to be out of town. Batman and Robin were in the middle of dismantling a drug ring, so that basically left Tim and Jason on their own.

At first, it had looked like Dick’s ribs were going to give Tim and Jason the worst issues. A few seemed to be fractured at the least, and if any of them broke, then they could be dealing with a punctured lung, and that was _way_ above Tim’s experience level.

The scariest moment had probably been when Dick had first woken up. Jason had put a hand on Dick’s to check his breathing, and then Dick had freaked out. Tim couldn’t do more than suggest getting their brother sitting up and then shoving an oxygen mask over his face. It had worked, but Tim hadn’t been sure.

And then there had been the concussion. If you could call it that. Tim had a sneaking suspicion that it was a little more than just a concussion at this point, though. Dick had responded to Tim’s voice, but not his actual words. It was like he couldn’t understand what Tim was saying, and that’s when Tim realized how out of his depth he really was.

How out of their depth they _all_ were.

Tim fell back on what he was good at doing: research. He researched Dick’s symptoms online and hacked into medical records until he had a good idea of what he was actually dealing with. And then he’d dug some more, because more information could never hurt.

It was always a case-by-case basis, though, so most of what Tim had found on Traumatic Brain Injury was things that could _possibly_ happen, not things that would happen. There could be things not on the list, or—

It was a hard thing to research. Every brain was different, and Dick’s head had had a run in with a crowbar—Oh, Jason had had a field day with that one—so there was probably a difference in how he sustained his injury that affected his symptoms. It was all completely confusing, but Tim was trying. Or, well, he was obsessing.

So far, Tim pretty much figured that the part of Dick’s brain that handled processing and speech had been damaged or affected, maybe by a chemical imbalance from the hit, or the axons weren’t sending the messages as fast anymore because the neurons weren’t firing as often—

The point was. There was no way to know fully how Dick’s brain had been affected. At least, not without a psychologist and a neurologist at the bare minimum, and no one in their family was even close to either of those things. Hell, they could _all_ probably use psychologists with their dysfunctional vigilante family. None of them were going to admit it, though.

Tim sighed, dropping his head in his hands. He was tired. _So_ tired, but he’d already tried sleeping after Bruce had kicked the others out of the room and Dick had finally let go of consciousness. He’d closed his eyes for about two minutes before the images of Dick getting whammied by a crowbar assaulted him.

Next thing he knew, he was back to staring at Dick sleep.

Tim’s phone buzzed, bringing him out of his spiraling thoughts, and Tim blinked in surprise. It was Kon. Actually, looking at his messages, he had quite a few texts from Kon, and even three missed calls. Two from Kon, the other from Bart. He wondered if something happened with the Titans.

He opened Kon’s thread and read the unread messages, the first ones starting around one in the morning, around the same time that Dick had gotten hurt.

_If you’re not busy I need a favor._

_Nvm._

_Tim?_

_Are you still on patrol?_

_I know you said you had a thing, but I’ve got a bad feeling._

The last message that Kon left on his phone was, _Call me,_ at 7:43 this morning. It was 9:13 now. Tim couldn’t believe that it had only been eight hours since Dick had been hit with a crowbar. It felt like he had aged ten years in the span of those hours.

Sighing, he fired a text to Kon.

_Patrol went bad last night. Dick’s hurt. Everyone else is fine. Sorry for not answering earlier._

There was an almost immediate response.

_How bad?_

_Concussion,_ Tim decided to go with, because the whole story was still a little confusing for even Tim. _Plus fractured ribs. He also went into shock, but we managed to get him stabilized._

_That doesn’t sound good._

_I said it was bad, didn’t I?_

_Do you need me or Bart to come over?_

_Probably not a good idea. Bruce is on edge._

_Because of Dick?_

_It’s complicated._

_Uncomplicate it._

Tim didn’t really know how to answer that. How did he say that his brother was having trouble processing words fast enough to even hold a conversation? Or how did he say that Dick would randomly drift into thought after someone asked him a question, and when they tried to ask him again, he would startle, like he didn’t remember they were talking to him? How did he explain that his brother’s brain was broken?

Tim’s phone buzzed again. He opened the message.

_Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but call me if you need me._

Smiling softly, Tim texted back, _Thanks. I’ll let you know,_ before tucking his phone back into his pocket.

* * *

“Timmy,” Jason was whispering, somehow getting close enough to shake Tim awake from the doze Tim finally slipped into while sitting in the chair beside Dick’s bed. “Timmy, wake up.”

“Jay?” Tim murmured, not really understanding what was happening. God, he needed coffee. “Wha’s goin’ on?” His stomach started to sink and he sat up fully, trying to get a grasp on the situation. “Is it Dick? Is he okay?”

Jason smirked. “Relax, Babybird. Dickiebird is fine. I’m just here to tell you that you are absolutely not allowed to miss lunch.”

Tim blinked. “Lunch?”

“Bruce made sandwiches,” Jason told him, his smirk dropping into a grimace. “I’m pretty sure that’s the only kind of food Bruce knows how to not mess up.”

“Sandwiches,” Tim repeated, still trying to catch up. Man, he really did need coffee. His brain wasn’t up to normal human functioning right now. “Wait, it’s lunchtime? I swear it was just ten.”

Jason’s eyebrows rose. “That’s what happens when you fall asleep, Timmy.” He used his hands to imitate fireworks. “Time magically slips by without you even knowing it. Hell, you probably needed it, though. You know, after five coffees yesterday and the all-nighter you just pulled.”

“Everyone pulled an all-nighter,” Tim told him coolly, not appreciating what Jason was trying to get at here. “It wasn’t just me.”

“Yeah, but you’re the only one who stayed up the night before, too. Like I said, you’re an idiot who makes poor health choices.”

“At least I don’t chain smoke,” Tim retorted.

Jason smirked. “Hey, don’t dig until you try it. Besides, I’ve already died once.”

 “And the way you smoke and throw yourself into the line of fire, you’d think you want to die a second time,” Tim murmured, but Jason ignored him. Probably a good thing, because Tim was dead tired and he really didn’t have a filter at the moment.

Tim sagged back into his chair, watching as Jason took the chair opposite him. Jason met his eyes and gestured towards the main part of the Cave. “Go eat before Bruce lectures me for you not eating.”

Tim stumbled out of his chair with a sigh, not even questioning Jason’s strange way of getting rid of him. He could read people, after all. Maybe not as well as Dick, but he understood that Jason just wanted to spend time with Dick. Even if he wasn’t willing to admit it.

Well, Jason was Dick’s little brother, too, he told himself, even as he regretted every step he took that led him away from Dick. Jason deserved some alone time with Dick, too. It was only fair, after all.

Tim just wished his heart got the memo.


End file.
